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Thursday, September 23, 2010

Judge other by their character only. This is the rule I am always trying to drive home to the girls. We live a society where more and more we judge people by what they have,look like,drive,who they love,where they live and less and less by who they are as a person. I hate this. I try very hard not to do it.

Do a random act of kindness everyday. It doesn't have to be a grandiose gesture just a little something. Leave a nice comment on a favorite blog,let someone go first at a stop sign,let someone go ahead of you at a checkout.When you get the chance to do a big kindness never pass it up.

These are my simple life rules. Don't get me wrong-I'm so far from perfecting my rules that it's not even close to being on the radar. In fact I happily consider myself a sarcastic,snarky(is that how it's spelled?) pain in the butt most of the time but by trying to follow my rules helps me become the woman I want to be and to mold my daughters into the women I hope to see them become﻿.

If this post comes across preachy-I assure it's not intentional. It's just a little bit put out there so you can learn a bit more about what makes me tick

Being that I'm stuck in my studio today and won't be out to do my random act so I figure I'll do it here.

I will randomly pick anyone who comments on this post to win a pair of earrings

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I mentioned briefly in my previous post that for Sophia's birthday this year the theme was Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Sophia loves her themed parties- she's had a under the sea party,carnival party,puppy party but this year we were stuck on ideas under Gabriella suggested the tea party. She's so smart. We had a great time planning the party.
I really wanted to stick to a budget of $150.00 which surprisingly wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.
We spent the summer searching local thrift shops,yard sales and the goodwill store to find mismatched tea cups and saucers and servers. We were able to get all the teacups for between $1.00-$3.00 each-not a bad deal.

We weren't even looking for it when we found it there. We just happened to wander in one day and there it was just screaming Alice-best part it was on clearance! Sophia also wore it to the wedding we went to in Delaware earlier in the summer.

Gabriella was dressed like the mad hatter. Shirt & hat were on clearance at Claire's and the skirt was full price at a whopping $13.00. One .99 cent can of orange hair spray and she was set

The best deal I got were the tablecloths

I bought an entire bolt of upholstery fabric for $1.00 at a yard sale. It was enough to cover 2- 6' tables,1- 4' tables and 3 snack trays.

I used turquoise and hot pink plates and napkins and spray painted all the serving trays and bowls in the same colors

We played a game where 2 teams of girls had to fill a bucket of one end of the yard from another bucket at the other end using a teacup to transfer the water

We also played Alice bingo- I just download a bingo card change "bingo" to "Alice" and made the spaces all Alice themed words.

Party girls

Tea Anyone?

The girls took home their teacups. Sophia specifically picked out the teacups for each of her guests
I mentioned in another post that I was going to try to make a Topsy turvy cake.
Unfortunately I lost my nerve and ended up making a plain stacked cake.
This was only my second time using fondant and I have decided this is probably my last time using fondant!

The fondant cracked big time on the bottom layer of the cake and when I tried to remove it it only made it worse.The second and third layers were OK-not great just OK. Fortunately I bought cutters in the shape of flowers so I ended up cutting out tons of white flowers which mercifully hid all my decorating shortcomings. I was lucky to have my best friend Linda to help me or I would have never would have gotten the cake done. Sophia didn't know I was making her the cake so I did the baking here and decorating at Linda's house

I also made a dozen and a half cupcakes in each the same flavor of the cake layers- carrot,red velvet and lemon. I wanted to have a backup if the cake was a complete bomb.

All and all the party went well, that kids had a great time,Sophia loved her surprise cake and I stayed on budget.

Friday, September 10, 2010

All my favorite DIY blogs have been abuzz the last couple of months with their different versions of dollar store hurricanes & I finally got around to making my own.

I got my supplies at Family Dollar

All the pieces ended up costing only $7.00 the 2 smaller candle holders came together as a set for $1.00 Unfortunately for me my dollar store didn't carry the fluted hurricanes but these turned out just fine. I'll have to keep looking

After running the pieces through the dishwasher I applied a thin layer of E6000 adhesive to the candles holders,placed the hurricanes on top and placed heavy books on top of them and let them set overnight.

I had a dinner party the next day and use them to hold the silverware

Then used them to hold candy at Sophia's birthday party(more about that in another post)

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

I can't believe it's already September. It seems like we were just planning the end of school parties and now we're going back to school in just a few days.Although there are things that I love about summer:

Taking walks in Port without the seasonal tourists( I know it sounds mean and they are great for the local business economy but 3 months is enough)

&

The beautiful fall foliage. I literally take the long way home just to enjoy the view

Apple picking,candy apples,apple pies,apple everything!

Decorating with pumpkins , leaves and Indian corn. My home is decorated in this color palette-I just love it. It's also my favorites colors to make jewelry with so I tend to be more creative in the fall.

Sweater coats

I love sweater coats-I even use one as a bathrobe-I also love me some ponchos

So with all do respect to my summer lovin' friends-step aside ladies this is my time!

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